The Vancouver Food Policy Council is pleased to partner with the UBC School of Social Work to offer this unique panel discussion as part of the 2018 Sustenance Festival.

Join us for an evening of conversation with authors Graham Riches and Andy Fisher. Both of their recently published books critically explore the root causes of food insecurity in the Global North. Their work puts the adequacy of food banks on trial as a primary solution to this nation-wide issue. We will hear from both authors, and open up the room for conversation and questions from the audience.

Andy Fisher is a leading national expert on community food security in the USA, and author of the recently published Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance between Corporate America and Anti Hunger Groups (MIT Press, 2017). He is a co-founder of the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC), which has successfully brought together food security advocates across the country and influenced federal nutritional legislation. More recently he served as the Executive Director at Portland Fruit Tree Program (2015-2017). Andy Fisher currently consults on various food system organizations and speaks throughout North America about his vision for addressing hunger.

Graham Riches is a former Director of UBC’s School of Social Work (1998 – 2008), and author of Food Bank Nations: Poverty, Corporate Charity and the Right to Food (Routledge, 2018). He is a co-founder of Vancouver Food Policy Council and has written extensively about food poverty in Canada and first world hunger in wealthy nation states from a right to food perspective.